It's rare to see guitarist Pat Metheny play second fiddle.

But the two-hour concert Wednesday night at the Keswick Theatre was largely a reunion of vibraphonist Gary Burton's quartet of the 1970s, where Metheny got his break and could see a fusion blueprint for much of his career. Metheny called it "the rough equivalent of getting to join the Beatles" in the notes of the Burton group's CD released last month, Quartet Live.

Metheny, 54, who's prone to exuberant quotes like that, didn't utter a word all night. With his retro-style hair at electric attention, he just played magnificently, blurring space and time like some Star Trek figure from the future.

He also offered a certain looseness at times that set off Burton's precision.

The leader, 66, celebrated his own start a generation earlier with country guitarist Walter L. "Hank" Garland on a Monk-like blues called "Walter L."

Burton clearly was into fusion from the start. He was full of intelligent lines all night, and his quartet with bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Antonio Sanchez engulfed charts like a Maserati, appropriating the heat of rock influences without being swallowed by them.

Swallow's solo on the second encore was a model of how to invoke the rock gods without dissing the jazz ones. Sanchez was amazing in his own right, finding different timbres on his drum kit and providing prodigious propulsion in an understated way.

Like Metheny and Burton before him, Sanchez spent time in the formative air of Boston's Berklee College of Music.

This band quietly plumbed its spectacular songbook. The one continuous set opened with Chick Corea's mysterious "Sea Journey" and flowed into Carla Bley's poignant "Olhos de Gato." Soon the standardlike lines of Keith Jarrett's "Coral" were enlivening the hall. Burton called it one of his favorite ballads, and it certainly charmed.

Metheny and Burton performed a series of duets midway that highlighted their unique chemistry.

Metheny's tunes such as "Question and Answer" were another powerful addition, hanging in memory like the best Broadway show tunes.

Anyone who thinks all the jazz titans are dead was not there.